Mike, turn that AC off! You'll be wishing for the warmth soon enough anyway. Plus you need to save electric bills for palm hut heating....
Bixby forecast for Friday morning is 31 oF / -1 oC but I'm hoping being up on a hill spares me a degree.
That worked this time last year when I only got to 34 oF in the first frost for Bixby.
I'm not ready, in more ways than one. --Erik

LOL, i just hate the humidity....it feels like june again. Although my musas are still loving it, leaves still curling out and up...Insane! I will be ready to winterize after the holiday 😈

Is it really windy out there a lot in winter too?? How about sunny days? Do you get a lot?

Mike,
it can get very windy here in winter.
We did not have wind last night, which might make the cold nights get colder.
I am on a hill-top, which helps as cold air sinks in the absence of wind. So, it only got to 32 - 33 oF or so this morning. There was a light frost on leaves, which Colocassia, Musa and Musella did not like but they'll make it a little longer.
As for humidity, there is none now--the dew point is 34 oF right now, for example. We need strong winds off the Gulf of Mexico for humidity, and those are rare in winter.

heir calling for a cm of snow tonight. And apperantly snow squalls ( snow storms around the lake front, not lake effect, which is from the winds commng over the lake ). they can be tricky, probably only a dusting, but then again, squalls can intensify quick, and be unpredictible, and drop 10 cm of snow in an hour 👿

finally got a bit of frost here this week, but the lows are back to the low 40s and high 30s and highs in the afternoons are going up to the mid 60s...

I did get five 5' musa basjoo banana pups in the house this week...with large root bases...They are beautiful! I can't believe ho huge the whole root balls are fo the mother plants!!!!!! Jesus Christ!!! 😯

As with Jim last night, I'm going to get it good tonight. So far all I've had is 31 oF (-0.5 oC) and that was brief.
The forecast for tonight varies from source to source, but definitely into the 20s oF -- either mid or upper. I'm on a hill top, and there is not wind, so I like to think I'll be on the upper end.
W and I have been working longs days all week. We did not have much time, but I had previously potted a lot of things.
Here is where there are right now:

Dining room has--
Dypsis
Caryota
Chameadores (geonormis, ernesti-augustii)
Bismarckia
Roystonea
Ravenella (traveller's "palm")
plus a few other plants (Hamellia, Gardenia, kumquat, Bourgainvillea, Ficus benjamina, a few others). Yet, it is feeling full!

Ball room (= mostly unheated converted garage with decent south windows) so far only has a Lanata and a Musa.

In pots up against the west wall are many palms--
the new ones (Brahea, Nannorrops, Trithrinax, Washy), seedling Sabal, the little Trachycarpusn "takil" (=nainital)
plus a few others (sago "palms", Michelia).

In the ground unprotected at all are Sabal, Chamearops, Chameadroes radicalis, Trachycarpus and Rhapidophyllum + the Phoenix roebellini I'll dig up soon. Plus some others I'll have to dig up soon like Alpinia, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, Citrus "Meyer." No winter protection at all in hopes a little cold now will help them get ready (just a hypothesis). I did through old blankets over the H. rosa-sinensis and some smaller Musa basjoo.

I can't take photographs like Jim can (e.g., his new thread) but I'll try to take some.

--Erik

Interesting last 2 days here......., - 6 the other night and -6C last night, with ighs of 2C 😐 Today and the next 5 days, highs of 10C, with lows around 3C 😐 My cannas havnt died all the way back yet, and they cyperus finally got knocked down. But the passiflora, is sill growing.

Still no snow. Southern ontario got 5 - 10CM, not to often they get snow before we do..

sound like you guys will be busy protecting...I just brought in 6 musa basjoo pups yesterday evening...actually, they are pretty big pups around 5' tall each....they are beauts, and I was able to get a lot of root ball with them. I was amazed at how huge and thick the original root masses got over the past six months outside,,,like a stone wall...my god! Should I trim some of the leaves off of the pups in the house to not make the diminished root systems have to work so hard or just leave them? What do you all think?

Mike,
get those pups in soon!
W wanted to dig and bring some in to get a head-start on Spring but I was so tired last night I said it could wait.
Wrong! Even the pups I covered with buckets or blankets lost all leaves, although the stems may be alright.
Here is a photo of my favourites. They are Musa basjoo "thin red line", from cistus.com
(here is their catalogue description:
Musa basjoo 'Thin Red Line'hardy fiber banana
One of the boldest plants we sell. After 3 years, 20 ft stems with 10 ft long leaves and drooping branches of huge yellow flowers followed by real (insipid) bananas. Full to part sun, serious irrigation and heavy fertilizer. Plant 6" deeper than the soil in the nursery pot. Protect trunk from severe freezing with mulch or wrapping. Leaves frost back below 30 degrees F and trunk is hardy into the teens. Established plants are root hardy to USDA zone 6.)
I got mine from them in a 1 gal. pot three years ago. It never grows tall--I think of it as a dwarf here as it stops growing when it gets hot.
Anyway, by the end of the day the leaves are toast. It won't look like this for many months....
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href=" http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zJbtM0Pgkm-q1L-iGvETRQ?feat=embedwebsit e"><img src=" " height="478" width="800" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href=" http://picasaweb.google.com/terdalfarm/November2010?feat=embedwebsit e">November 2010</a></td></tr></table>

Cool...like a jungle. I did get the pups in pots and have placed them on the front sun porch, full sun from early am until about 1:00 pm (SSE facing exp.) Even in the winter time it heats up to the 60s in that room and never freezes at night . They should do well there. We haven't had a freeze here yet, but the tallest banana leaves in the yard are starting to curl and wither a little from cold and wind. Our lowest temp was 36 this past week.so it is coming. I've put a pic of the pups and other items we had to place on the porch below...All the other palms and tropicals are spread around the house as tastefully as possible...That of course is considered grounds for divorce by one of us (hint not me...

🙄 🙄 )

Here are the pics of what we put on the sun porch this weekend....

Erik bananas love heat and are very thirsty so just apply lots of water and fertilizer.

Mike perfect conditions to overwinter your plants. Lots of light and coolish temps, no need for much heat.
What a gorgeous front porch with the hibiscus pair; very welcoming! 😀
Barb

Erik

You can get a head start with your Basjoos next year by leaving them in the ground.

Every year they will grow their root mat wider/deeper giving the pups/saved stalks a big
jump the following spring.

My experience has been that when I brought larger plants inside and then planted them in
spring,they put all there energy into regrowing roots and pups!

This p'ed me off as I was lugging these big plants inside for nothing!

My Basjoos grew bigger than ever from the roots this year and I am guessing next year..
warm summer or not,they will be as big or bigger!

Good luck with yours,I will be interested in seeing you guys results 😆

Thanks for the tips, Barb & Jim.
This marital "conflict" happens this time every year. W is from Michigan; I'm from Oregon. Same latitude (45 oN) but VERY different winters! I'll leave 'em (M. basjoo) all in the ground. I did dig up and haul in "her" Musa (unknown sp., but not basjoo). Compromise.
Anyway, I'm about to stop on this thread and leave it to folks like Mike and coltrane who have not had a real frost yet. I had a freeze, not a frost, and it shows. All Canna, Celosia, Colocassia, Ipomea, Musa, Musella, Passiflora, Ruellia, etc. are done for the year. Only bright side is that the cold-hardy palms that were hidden by those are now more prominent in the landscape! 🙂
Not sure if Phoenix roebellini is worth digging up--it was very hard hit. I might start a new thread in a few days for input after I watch it for a few days; we are having great weather all week so I'll see if that helps it any.
I'll start a new thread today on the big Sabal palmetto and I'll want input from you two + gpenny and anyone else with cabbage palm experience. In brief, it is having problems, but those are unrelated to the "frost".
--Erik

Once it get's to Oct I look forward to the Bananas,Cannas, etc
going -so I can get back to the business of putting my attention
on my first love-cold hardy palms/cactus.
😀

You expected P. roebellenii to be fine?
It's pretty tender.

http://www.growingontheedge.net/viewtopic.php?p=27835&sid=853090fccc1de90849cb180f2a20e359

Then there are people like me who lose a 5-year old roebellenii even when it's never seen a frost 😕
*poop*

Jim...you're thinning the herd.
Barb
😀

Remember, despite my post #, I am a novice!
I post so much because of my inexperience.
So, please everyone (that includes you, Bill) give me advice later today on my Sabal palmetto. I'm still drafting that post.
I don't want it to go the way of the PDP or the large Butia....
--Erik
P.S. the avatar Butia looks great today, 15 months after the avatar photo was taken.